Patrick Clawson

Patrick Lyell Clawson (born March 30, 1951) is an American economist and Middle East scholar. He is currently the Director for Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and senior editor of Middle East Quarterly.
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Clawson graduated with a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1973 and earned a Ph.D. from The New School for Social Research in 1978. He taught at Seton Hall University from 1979–1981 and served as an economist for the International Monetary Fund from 1981 until 1985, when he took a position as a senior economist with the World Bank.
In September 2012, Clawson suggested that the United States consider the use of "crisis initiation" as a way to provoke Iran into war.